----extract starts----HELPMAKE CHRIS GRAYLING MAD Here’s an opportunity for you to help make a minister wish he hadn’t interfered.

Back in March we wrote about the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) employment and support allowance appeals video (external link) on Youtube. The video was pulled after less than a week, on the orders of senior officials.

Independent benefits expert Neil Bateman (external link), discovered that the video was taken down after employment minister Chris Grayling emailed the ministry complaining about, amongst other things, the fact that ittold claimants:

that they are twice as likely to win their appeal if they appear in person rather than having a paper hearing; that the DWP doesn’t normally send a representative to the hearing; to send additional evidence to the tribunal, when Grayling wants it sent to the DWP. Yesterday, three months later, the video reappeared and, to their credit, after their initial panic MoJ officials seem to have left it unaltered. The video is actually reasonably informative and reassuring for people who have no previous experience of appeal tribunals.

Normally, however, MoJ videos get very little attention – one has had just two views and few of the 120 videos onthe MoJ channel gets more than a few hundred views.

If Grayling hadn’t intervened this video would probably also have remained largely unseen. Now, however, we’re asking Benefits and Work newsletter readers to make it the most popular video the MoJ has ever produced. The current record holder has had 4,269 views and the ESA video currently stands at 1,063.

So, please,make Grayling mad by taking a look at the video and passing the link on to anyone you think might benefit:

Having removed the contact details of the original forwarder of this Kilburn Uenmployed Workers Group item while sending Bcc -- 'Blind carbon copy' -- to contacts off the KUWG e-list, it is now relatively safe for off-KUWG-list recipients to forward to other e-lists, etc as they see fit. Please, in doing so, remove my own contact details.

Thursday, 21 June 2012

Reclaiming Our NHS: Saturday June 23

Do you agree with what's happening to our NHS?

What can we do to protect it?

We think many people are concerned - especially now that the government has pushed through their controversial NHS changes. Pressure on our health services is already rising. The question now is: how can we all work together to protect patients and services? Our challenge is to find ways to have a bigger say over the future of NHS.So we are inviting you to Reclaiming Our NHS - a public conference in London on Saturday June 23rd - to discuss what we can do to protect our NHS; hear from experts about what's happening to our health services and meet other NHS supporters from across the country.

Over the past 50 years our current global economic model has failed to deliver the sustainable society that we need. Poverty has increased in absolute terms. The gap between rich and poor is growing and at the same time, we have already breached the “safe operating limit” of our planet. We need to build a new sustainable and socially just economy.
This conference will look at the role of trade unions in building a green and just Future that Works.

There will be workshop sessions on a variety of topics including Organising and Campaigning, Green jobs and Renewable energy.
To register for this conference please e mail kstevens@tuc.org.uk with your name, union, e mail address and any dietary or access requirements.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Christine Vié, a member of the UCU NEC is being made redundant by Manchester Metropolitan University. The UCU branch and the regional officer believe this is a clear case of victimisation for trade union activities. Here is an on-line petition and more details:https://www.ucu.org.uk/supportchristinevie

The second case concerns Greenwich UNISON - the Defend the Four Campaign is highlighting the on-going witch hunt by UNISON against four of its own activists. Here is the on-line petition and more details:http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/democracy-not-bureaucracy-in-unison

Please contact P.Murry at yrrumuk@googlemail.com if you are interested.

GREEN LEFT FRINGE AT AUTUMN CONFERENCE 2012

Both Green Left and the Green Party Trade Union Group applied to have fringes at the Green Party Conference September 7-10 2012, Conferences Committee turned down both these requests. Green Left decided to mount a fringe outside conference at 6-8pm on Saturday 8th September GPTU agreed to support this meeting and contribute towards costs of room hire. Video clips at http://greenleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/green-left-fringe-fringe-at-green-party.html